The Table-talk of Jalalu'ddin Rumi

Extract

The great poet, whose Mathnawí and Díwáni Shamsi Tabríz are well known to students of Persian mysticism, is said to be the author of a prose work entitled Fíhi má fíhi. Riḍá Qulí Khán mentions it in the preface to the Tabríz edition of the Díwán, remarking that it is addressed for the most part to Mu'ínu'ddín, the Parwána (Lord Chamberlain) of Rúm, that it is equivalent to 3,000 verses in extent, and that manuscripts are rare. I have not met with any further account of it. The only copies of which the existence has yet been announced are the two at Constantịnople referred to by M. Louis Massignon in his Bibliography of Ḥalláj, which was published last year. Since then, however, an Indian scholar, Mr. 'Abdu '1-Majíd, of Daryábád, Bara Banki, has brought to my notice three more copies, one in the Hyderabad State Library, one in the Rampur State Library, and one in Nawáb Sálár Jung's Library at Hyderabad, Deccan. Mr. 'Abdu'1-Majíd, who proposes to edit the Persian text, is having these MSS. transcribed for his own use, and a few weeks ago he was so kind as to lend me for a short period his copy of the manuscript belonging to the Hyderabad State Library. I am glad to take the opportunity of thanking him for this and other important services which he has rendered me in connexion with my work on the Mathnawí. So far as I can judge at present, the Fíhi má fíhi throws a good deal of light on the meaning of that immense and difficult poem; but the question is one that it would be premature to discuss now.